Stop expecting Donald Trump to do the right thing. Because of his Narcissistic Personality Disorder, he can’t.
In the United States, we are in a crisis that should not have been a crisis. It should have been manageable. And with any other person in the White House, it would have been. The U.S. would likely have interceded while the COVID-19 coronavirus was still largely confined to Wuhan, China – and may have prevented the outbreak from reaching the United States, or from spreading once it had.
The status of coronavirus in the United States currently is that of a wildfire that has leaped the freeway into the subdivision. It’s out of control. Everyone in the United States who understands how complex systems work, what virality means, what exponential growth is, how evolution works, has been waiting for the federal government to do the things it should have done immediately to prevent the spread:
1. Intercede overseas.
2. Restrict entry at all ports of entry, and test everyone coming in.
3. Use the massive power of the federal government to mass-produce and deploy tests rapidly.
4. Thus, isolate the outbreak.
The United States of America is capable of all this.
But those things were not done. As a result, the disease has been spreading throughout the population. It’s everywhere in the country, as well as everywhere in the world, in a matter of weeks.
Given that spread, the next set of actions that should have been taken by the President are:
1. Use the federal government’s authority under the Defense Production Act to require manufacturers to make and supply, at controlled prices, millions of tests to locate and thus isolate the disease, and get it back under control, as well as to produce masks, faceshields, gowns, latex gloves, and ventilators en masse for medical professionals to remain protected while dealing with the exponential growth of hospitalized patients.
2. Activate the U.S. military’s mobile field hospitals and send them to the hardest-hit areas (New York, Seattle) immediately, and equip impromptu medical facilities everywhere the need is predicted.
3. Issue stay at home orders to prevent further spread while the outbreak is contained and the already-sick are treated.
4. Pass rapid legislation to give immediate cash relief to workers and businesses to weather the few weeks of shutdown.
But none of these things has happened, either.
Instead, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has taken to the White House briefing room day after day to tout what a great job he has done, and to claim, falsely, that all of these things have happened, are happening now, are about to happen, or will happen shortly.
None of which is true.
There are no millions of tests. There are no millions of masks. There are no millions or even thousands of ventilators to deal with what could be, given a 1-2% rate of serious cases requiring hospitalization, between 3.5 and 7 million hospitalizations as the disease ripples across the United States without check.
That’s because Donald Trump is not doing any of this.
And the reason is that he is not capable of doing the most fundamental job of President of the United States, which is to protect the lives of the American people.
He has no idea how.
Trump knows how to do one thing: seek validation and admiration.
In this case, that means that he has no idea what to do to deal with this crisis. It’s obvious every second of every press conference as he just says whatever pops into his head, or repeats, almost verbatim, what one of the other “panelists” has just said, pretending that it is something that he knows. Or retreats to venality and pettiness in response to a basic question such as:
What can you do to assure us that the things that are being promised here are actually happening?
Trump’s response to that question last week was to attack the reporter who asked it and the press and then leave the room. Because those promised things were not actually happening and Trump had and has no understanding of how to make them happen. Nor does he have any interest in finding out.
Or:
“What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now and are scared?”
Trump’s response there was to attack the befuddled journalist.
We should expect no other response, because Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder.
Here’s what characterizes that mental health condition, per the Mayo Clinic’s overview:
Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
A narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. People with narcissistic personality disorder may be generally unhappy and disappointed when they’re not given the special favors or admiration they believe they deserve. They may find their relationships unfulfilling, and others may not enjoy being around them.
Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder centers around talk therapy (psychotherapy).
Symptoms
Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and the severity of symptoms vary. People with the disorder can:
- Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance
- Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration
- Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
- Exaggerate achievements and talents
- Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
- Believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people
- Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
- Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
- Take advantage of others to get what they want
- Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
- Be envious of others and believe others envy them
- Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
- Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office
At the same time, people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they perceive as criticism, and they can:
- Become impatient or angry when they don’t receive special treatment
- Have significant interpersonal problems and easily feel slighted
- React with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make themselves appear superior
- Have difficulty regulating emotions and behavior
- Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change
- Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection
- Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation
Although mental health professionals will typically not diagnose a patient without a formal examination, it’s pretty clear that this describes Donald Trump with precision.
This disorder leaves the President open to manipulation by actors who understand it (notably, Vladimir Putin and Mitch McConell), and misunderstanding by the public, press, and other government officials who don’t have experience with anyone with this or a related disorder.
This means that, as a nation, we need to stop expecting that Donald Trump will ever be able to actually do the job of protecting the country and defending it against enemies foreign or domestic, including microorganisms.
He has an illness that prevents him from being able to access the cognitive and emotional resources necessary for doing what is probably the most complex and taxing and challenging job on the planet – one that requires, essentially, a super-smart, super-capable intellect.
Donald Trump is not that person.
To understand Donald Trump, you might think of him as being a bottomless vortex of need. The only thing that keeps him going, the only thing he craves, is validation from others, to fill a gaping hole in his sense of self where unconditional parental love should have been when he was a child, and was not.
He doesn’t care about you. He can’t. He is not capable of it. He doesn’t care whether you or your parents or your grandparents or your child or your significant other get sick or die, so long as that death is not perceived as being his fault.
He can’t.
He is not capable of seeing you as important in any way, except as a source of admiration and validation.
It’s because of how his brain was wired, perhaps by childhood traumatic experiences.
Why was the US not prepared to prevent the spread of the virus? Because Trump dismantled the global pandemic office that his predecessor built with Americans’ money to keep Americans safe and protected.
Trump’s central governing principle has been to undo everything Barack Obama – because Barack Obama dismantled him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and, later, laughed and said “that guy will never be president.”
Deep inside, Trump knows that he is not worthy, that he is not legitimate. That’s the legacy of how he was parented. His only motivator is protection of his own extremely fragile ego.
And defending his non-existent sense of self is the only thing he is capable of doing. People with NPD are typically defensive – meaning they will do anything to hide the disorder, or their own perceived flaws, to protect their vulnerable sense of self.
That’s why, when asked, just three days ago, “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now and are scared?”, Trump’s response was:
“I’d say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I’d say … I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people … You should be ashamed of yourself.”
To Trump, the question felt like a personal attack, because the idea that the American people would be scared – with him in charge – is a suggestion that he is not capable of doing the job of keeping Americans safe.
And, deep inside, Trump knows that that is the truth. The disorder is marked by remarkably low self-esteem that is masked by a facade of extremely high self-regard.
Trump has to shield his fragile sense of self against other people knowing that that is so.
So he lashes out in attack.
Again, as the Mayo Clinic explains, someone with narcissistic personality disorder might:
- Become impatient or angry when they don’t receive special treatment
- Have significant interpersonal problems and easily feel slighted
- React with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make themselves appear superior
- Have difficulty regulating emotions and behavior
- Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change
- Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection
- Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation
Every single one of these responses was on full display in that interchange. Trump was not even capable of understanding what he was being asked: to reassure others.
In recent weeks, we have seen Trump blame the Chinese Government, Obama, Europe, Democrats in Congress, the governors of New York and California and Washington State, the press, and everyone but himself for the disease’s unchecked stampede into the country. That blaming, too, is a hallmark of people with narcissistic personality disorder. Because it deflects attention from the unworthy self.
In Trump’s own mind, he is an imposter. His greatest mortal terror is that everyone knows it.
This is why Trump is now pretending that he has already solved the crisis, and it’s time to “reopen the country”. The pandemic has just begin to hit the United States. The problem hasn’t been solved. Trump has not begun to solve it. He can’t. He is not capable of understanding the problem sufficiently to address its causes and treat its effects. He is not capable of understanding how to solve big, complex, systemic public policy problems.
He only understands that a failure to be reelected will be the ultimate rejection, the ultimate humiliation, the ultimate confirmation that he is an imposter. It is an existential ego threat.
Unfortunately, because of the way his brain is wired, what others think of him is the only thing he can care about.
That might be good, in a democracy, if he were a fully functional adult. But he’s not. He doesn’t know how to actually protect the country. He only knows how to pretend that he knows.
Trump is not capable of doing the job. He has no idea what the job is.
He is only capable of pretending to be doing the job, for just long enough to avoid having to deal with the consequences of his own inability to do the job.
That’s why he should have been removed from office by the Senate two months ago.
As Congressman Adam Schiff put it in his closing arguments in Trump’s impeachment trial in January, as news of the COVID-19 virus was just beginning to leak out of China:
“Can you have the least bit of confidence that Donald Trump will … protect our national interest over his own personal interest? You know you can’t, which makes him dangerous to this country. You know you can’t. You know you can’t count on him. None of us can.”
Schiff was talking about Trump’s failure, in that case, to protect the country against the ongoing cyberattack by Russia. He could just as easily have been talking about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You can’t trust this president will do what’s right for this country,” Schiff continued. “He will do what’s right for Donald Trump. The American people deserve a president they can count on to put their interests first.”
Trump’s reaction to this was to lash out with a visceral hatred of Schiff akin to Trump’s visceral hatred of Obama – or anyone who puts their finger right on the reality of the wound.
Trump’s defenders (and, really, we should call them enablers, because they are allowing a very sick man to continue to harm himself and everyone around him – including the entire population) now are arguing that, before the social distancing we have undertaken really only in the last week, really takes effect, it should end – because it is damaging the Donald Trump Economy. The stock market is Trump’s only concern – because it gives the lie to his pretended efficacy. He wants to “reopen the country” on Easter. His need is to play the role of the savior, when nothing yet has been saved.
The stock market tanked because Trump failed to keep us safe.
Now we are being told we should make ourselves even less safe in order to make the stock market go back up.
That’s now apparently the party line: you should put yourself at risk to protect Donald Trump’s Economy and thus his reelection.
At this point, it’s not matter of, in Schiff’s formulation, what the American people deserve. It’s a matter of basic need, life and death – the safety and well-being of people.
None of this is to say that Trump is unworthy of empathy or love. Far from it. It is, rather, that he should be in therapy to heal his deep wounds – not at the helm of the most complex human civilization in the history of our species in a time of systemic crisis, during which what is required of him is to think deeply and thoughtfully and comprehensively about how can I take care of the needs of others.
It is exactly the thing that someone with narcissistic personality disorder can not do.
Schiff was right, of course. You can’t count on Trump to do the right thing. It’s not because he’s a bad person or a racist or a sexist or a crook. One could be any or all of those things (and many U.S. Presidents have) and still be competent at governance.
But Trump has a mental illness that renders him unable to even understand how to do the job of caring for and protecting other people, or that it is his job in the first place, or that there would be any need for him to do it.
Effectively, there is no President.
We must stop waiting for Trump to do the right thing. We must move on.